IMLP 2013, here I come!

I was supposed to spend my birthday working at this year’s Lake Placid Ironman, but I ended up staying home with back issues (I’m getting old). I did something to it in the middle of the week (slept funny?) and it took days for the discomfort to go away. So instead, I spent my birthday sitting in my backyard pulling weeds (not good for a bad back – live and learn), and getting sushi with my friend. Aside from the back pain, it was a good day.

I do have a pretty amazing story about a friend though…

One of the guys from my tri club had been training like a maniac for Lake Placid. He busted his butt for a year. A few weeks ago, he was racing in the Tinman half iron, where he got into a bike crash and broke his collarbone. His dream of racing the 2012 Lake Placid Ironman was gone. He was devastated.

He said he was still going to go to Placid and enjoy the day, and use it as inspiration for 2013. But he had a different plan.

Turned out, he raced anyway. He swam 2.4 miles, biked 112 miles, and ran 26.2 miles with a broken collarbone. And the entire run was done with his arm strapped to his side in a sling.

He came in 12 minutes before the 17 hour cutoff. He is officially an Ironman.

And that was with one arm, quite literally, tied behind his back.

Here’s a video of Jeff coming into the finish…

On Monday afternoon, I was sitting in my office at work, browser window open, hitting “refresh” every minute until the Ironman Lake Placid registration opened at 12:00. I, like many others, frantically typed away, trying to get registered before all the spots filled.

No problemo!

Apparently, with the new additions of Ironman New York and Ironman Mount Tremblant, there was less pressure for people looking for a northeast Ironman to register for Lake Placid, and instead of selling out in minutes (like in previous years), it didn’t sell out until later that evening. That certainly makes it easier!

Training for Beach2Battleship is going well. My swimming feels fairly good. (I won’t use the word “strong,” but it’s respectable.) Biking is still difficult, but getting easier. I’m not fast, by any stretch of the imagination, but I get through. Of course, running has taken a bit of a hit, since I’m not focusing on just that anymore, but it’s still going just fine. I tend to be between 10:00 and 10:30/mile for most of my runs lately.

Speaking of which, I have a 12 miler to do tonight. Seeing as we have a tornado watch and all these crazy thunderstorms coming through, I’ll be on the treadmill. Hopefully we don’t lose power.